The first proper chapter of this Edda starts here. Welcome to the start of Hiccup's road towards becoming a complete, mature man.

An apology for the slightly late upload (it is 1.08am here), but my service provider decided to dislike me today.

A slight warning of animal cruelty in the first scene.

Berkian Eddur - 1

Becoming Lífþrasir

Daily Toil

The chores in the house were done. They never took too long, not with two frugal warriors living inside. Stoick never commented about anything, either – not since she'd moved in, and taken on the household role she had never thought would fit her. Still, Astrid simply sighed as she covered the bubbling pot, banking the fire till it only smouldered, and shouldered her axe; her new life hadn't erased much of her previous one, and none of the guilt that still gnawed at her even after five years.

She headed out, stopping for a moment at the Haddock lodge's door to look at the rest of the village. It was little wonder why the chief's house was built in this spot, once you saw the view it afforded. Almost all of Berk save Mildew's part of the island was in view, and even if the sun had only barely peeked above the sea, some of its more bustling residents were already raising a hand to her in greeting.

Stoick would be up soon, would help himself to breakfast and then head out to the Hall to take stock of his duties for the day. Astrid knew to head there once she had managed to satisfy her own need to keep her physical training in top shape, and between shadowing Stoick and helping out where she could with her peers in the normal chores reserved for their group, as well as keeping the Haddock lodge in proper order, she knew her day would be full until her head hit her pillow tonight.

This moment, though, was only hers, and so with a few nods and waves, she headed out towards the forge. Once there, Gobber greeted her with his quiet smile – no one had heard him sing for the last five years – and handed her what she always came for; a few scraps of leather, good for nothing but making a few thongs to hang things by, when there was enough to them. The smith turned back to his work. Gobber was always busy now, after all, because he had never taken on another apprentice.

She hurried off quietly, hastening her pace as she noticed the sun's steady climb into the sky. She nodded to Fishlegs, who was out looking blearedly at a hole in his roof, his wife grumbling at him from within as Tuffnut tried, and failed, to taunt his sister through the hole without falling in. Astrid went even faster when she heard Snotlout's laugh – wasting time shaking that boy off was not in her plans. Everyone else knew to leave her be in the mornings, except him.

She rushed through the woods, using the time to practice evasive manoeuvres and to travel while throwing her axe at targets she pretended to be in motion. Once she got to her destination, however, she approached the spot at the cliffs quietly. The mound of rocks she had piled there greeted her as it did every day, shining with the light behind it, and keeping strong against the winds. It had been blown down a few times, but Astrid only started building it back up again.

Selecting another rock she deemed heavy and sturdy enough, Astrid began weaving one of the longest leather thongs Gobber had just given her into the web of the ones already there, holding the rock structure together. Once she was satisfied, she put the newer rock in the cradle of woven leather strips and began knotting them together, securing the new addition. Finally, before putting the last knot in, she took out a wooden charm she had whittled, and added it to the structure. Many others like it, all representing Mjölnir, clicked against the rocks as the wind jostled them. Astrid sat there after she was ready, praying hard to Odin and Thor to keep that stupid, stupid boy safe. Absently, she clutched her amulet as she prayed.

She had worked at the docks for months on end in order to earn enough goods she could barter for the silver. Her father had been confused, and even slightly angry that she had not turned to him to ask for money, and that she was not sharing her earnings with the household. But he had seen the letter, and he had grudgingly understood that this was her form of atonement. He had, after all, conceded to her moving into Stoick's home soon, and her bride-price had been fixed to something that would make the Hofferson clan richer for it. Hacknee also understood that his daughter hadn't proposed the solution that she had entirely for the political advantages it brought all parties; he could see in his little girl's eyes – for little girl she would always remain to him, despite some calling her an old maid by this point – that she really hoped the Haddock boy would return, if only to expiate her guilt. Astrid knew her father could read her well, and had allowed her more freedom than was normal, and she was grateful for it.

Astrid took a deep breath of sea-breeze, looking out at the sun glinting over the water and fingering her amulet. Spidery silver webbing housed the strange jewel she had found in her hair, a constant reminder of that night. Gobber had made it for her willingly, but hadn't been kind enough to conceal from her that the design wasn't his own – it had been something his apprentice had done, and whose things had been taken from the hiding places Gobber knew well enough and strewn back in their place in the tiny back room. The large man was known to spend hours there after a day's work, perusing some of the things his boy had created and hidden away as if ashamed of himself for his talent.

Life on Berk hadn't changed much for many, really, in the past five years. Astrid stood, giving the mound one last look before she began walking back to Berk. Apart from the obvious changes – Stoick rarely ever smiled at all anymore; Gobber's whistling and singing were a memory the youngest children didn't have; Astrid had moved into the Haddock lodge and officially been engaged to the chief's absent son – nothing much had changed. Ruffnut and Fishlegs had married last fall, almost a year ago now during the Autumn harvest, and Astrid had let herself enjoy it by staying close to the chief, her engagement protecting her from most of the unwanted calls to dance. They now had a child on the way, which was due any day, and Astrid enjoyed taunting the female twin with her inability to walk without waddling.

She was half-way back to the village when the first boom alerted her that something was happening – and that 'something' was what it always was, another dragon raid. Legs pumping, she was there in the midst of the fray within moments, axe swinging, punches flying and legs kicking. She reached Stoick just as he was wrestling a nightmare by the horns and saved him a flaming whip-tail by tackling him away. The dragon got away, but Stoick was saved a few very painful new scars.

The raid was repelled with their usual success rate. They won some and they lost some, and in this case, they'd lost some cattle, but no one had been hurt, and Snotlout strutted through town with two handfuls of terrible terrors he had captured and muzzled. As punishment and example, the terrors were tied to a post and left there, just facing the ocean, but chained to the wood and unable to leave, eat or rest as the children of Berk took turns poking them.

Astrid looked at the new additions to the wooden post grimly. One of them had lain down, and was barely fighting anymore. The village was busy bustling with the new set of repairs it now required, people yelling and cursing for this hammer and that rope. She knew she should be headed towards the hall as all hands would be needed to have the houses in good shape before any rain set in later today – because it would set in soon enough this time of year. But she couldn't look away from the prone terror – it would die, soon, she knew it. They always did, after they stopped fighting to get away.

She fingered her amulet, and Hiccup's taciturn, kind face shot through her mind. She hadn't realised how much she'd really noticed him till his quiet presence, always thrumming in the background like the comforting hum of a beehive, was suddenly gone. He'd been different, and she'd thought him weak for it, but the letters he had left her and Stoick, the brief glance she'd been given into his mettle through steely eyes, and the hard choices he'd made for the good of people who he thought openly cared nothing for him, had enshrined him in her mind into something that now she almost strived to be. Anyone could swing an axe, grow muscular and punch people in the face. It took something else to do what Hiccup had done, and she admired him for it.

With that in mind, she steeled herself and walked towards the terror posts. The gaggle of tiny dragons retreated as far as their chains would go, growling in their tinny voices behind their muzzles. The one lying down tried to rise, but wobbled back with a flop, and Astrid looked around, then bit her lip and cursed at herself before kneeling; stupid boy, even when he wasn't there, he was making them clean up his mess. She unhooked the chain from the back of its muzzle and hissed at it when it began scratching frantically, fear apparently giving it some strength back. A good shake quickly sapped it of fight, however, and she huffed at it, feeling stupid but cradling it against her nonetheless. Quickly, trying to look busy, she walked fast across the village to the Haddock home, depositing the trembling dragon on the table and quickly taking out three smoked fishes from the pantry. Taking the dragon up again, she headed towards the forest through the back door, waiting until she was a ways away before dropping it more gently than she was wont on the grass.

She put the fish down and gave it a look. "If you try to bite, or burn me, I'm finishing off what the pole started," she hissed at it. It hissed back, but only half-heartedly somehow, giving the fish very ravenous looks. "Right."

She took the muzzle off, and the dragon threw itself at the fish. Astrid stood there, for reasons she wasn't even sure why, and stared at it when it looked back at her, once the meagre meal was gone. The tiny dragon was still shaking, claws curling in and out of the ground as it vibrated with uncertainty. She sighed at it, just as unsure herself.

"Go on then, shoo. Stay away from Berk and you'll be fine. Don't make me regret this, or I'll turn you into a rug."

It gave a small puff of fire, hardly enough to scorch the ground in front of it, but it still caused Astrid to reach instinctively for her axe and wonder for a split-second what on earth she had been thinking. Obviously, though, the dragon had been trying for a diversion, because it flapped helplessly until it was a few feet in the air, gave a few shrilling cries, and then collapsed back onto the grass, having seemingly exhausted all its energy. Astrid couldn't hold back a snicker as it seemed to glare at her, and she threw it a piece of yak jerky she kept on her person for emergencies before heading back towards the village.

"Stupid reptile. Stay out of the village, you hear?"

She trudged back to Berk, shaking her head at herself and at the stupid little thing. She refused to acknowledge why she had just set free one of the village pests – it wasn't because Hiccup's compassion and kindness was something she had come to want dearly, and it wasn't because the red-scaled terror had very familiarly coloured green eyes. It wasn't even because she felt sorry for it, and all the senseless death that kept happening on both sides in the race for survival.

A thought kept recurring to her, though. The tiny reptile, even battered and half-dead as it was, had tried to fly off, and if her hunter's bearings weren't completely off, which they weren't, it was squarely in the direction of Helheim's gate. Even in the condition it was, with little to no energy left in it, the dragon had tried to fly back home.

An idea began forming in Astrid's head, half shaped like a monster and half like a final stroke of genius. The bustle of the village and the chores to do engulfed her once she reached the main streets of Berk, and the daily routine and so much work to do swept her away with it, until she was back in the loft room, exhausted, creeping under the furs in a bed that had once been Hiccup's. The idea came back to her then, slightly more shapely than before after a day of stewing in the juices of the back of her mind, and she dreamt of terrors tied to ship masts, pulling them to their triumph or doom.

=0=

Stoick woke up every morning ready to take on the world or die trying. Or that was what he used to wake up like, when his house was less silent and his life less empty. Now he woke to the good smell of food, a full day, a waiting village and a large bone still to pick with their reptile visitors. It would have been enough to fill anyone's life up to the brim, but Stoick's life still had a large, Hiccup-shaped hole in it that wouldn't be filled no matter what he did.

When Astrid had moved in, the lodge had at least stopped casting the appearance of a funeral ship, swallowing him whole in its blankness. She did everything that was expected of her to the best of her abilities, cooked well, kept the house spotless in a way Hiccup simply couldn't have by virtue of being out all day as much as his father was. He had all but adopted her, and the people of Berk were still fresh with the image of Hiccup the Promising, who was out on a quest to prove himself a hero, that they did not question the strange arrangement. After all, marriages had little to do with the groom's will anyway.

Still, Stoick couldn't quite shake off the veil of quiet that had descended on his life, as if someone had draped an invisible blanket of bear fur over all the noise. There were still the activities, the shouts and calls and explosions of every day Berk with its people and its pests, but somehow, the world was quieter.

Perhaps it was melancholy, he thought one night as he watched Astrid care for her weapons with oily rags and whetstones. This, right here, the domesticity of two warriors talking of their day's conquests and shortcomings, was what he had always wished to share with Hiccup. It seemed like such a ridiculous idea now, because Stoick could sit and sharpen weapons with anyone on Berk, but only Hiccup could strew blue-prints of the oddest contraptions all over the place, sketch everything he could lay his eyes on and make life so unpredictable and interesting. His son had been a man of unique talent, and that uniqueness had led Stoick to his wit's end when Hiccup was there. And yet now, five years of a quiet house and sameness had made him wish for his son's crazy ideas, his enthusiasm and his disastrous attempts to help. Stoick wished more than ever that the smithy would blow up with more than a dragon attack; that he would find half-eaten fruit and nibbled bread on the table around a parchment filled with scribbles, and that he could still walk up the stairs and see an auburn head lying on the pillow instead of a blonde one. It was almost a lesson to him from the gods, that the things he'd hated most about his son were also the ones he missed most dearly.

Astrid held her axe up to the light, turning it around to catch the glint of the flames before she sighed in satisfaction and put it back on its hooks. She had not used that axe in two years despite keeping it in pristine conditions, and Stoick had never asked why. Once her sharpening gear was put away, her whittling implements found their place in her lap, and another piece of oak turned into a small figure of Mjölnir.

"How did the Hoddegarr's son's presentation come along this morning?" Astrid asked half way through her task. She peeked up at him, glancing at the fire on the way back down as a pot bubbled merrily over it, boiling their linens.

"Oh, beautifully. Almost broke into a free-for-all fight. You should have seen grand-pappa Svensen, insisting the little wee thing be called Odegar the fierce." He laughed, enjoying Astrid's titter.

"He has to earn his adult name, like everyone else," she said, humming a few stray chuckles as her knife made short work of the oak. Stoick looked at her fondly: she had certainly earned her name of Astrid the Loyal. "Besides, Odegar Hoddegarr?" Another chuckle.

"How about you, full day?"

"Hmm," she agreed with a nod. "After the raid and patrol, I took care of Mulch's chicken problem. And … Stoick, I've been thinking." He looked up at her; her expression was sharp, and she was staring at the wooden surface of the table intently. "If you were captured, and found your way out, where would you return?"

Stoick looked at her for a moment, contemplating her expression, and the way her fingers were rolling the oak piece back and forth. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you'd been captured and you managed to get away, wouldn't you get home as fast as you can?"

"I would imagine…" He frowned. "Are you talking about … do you think Hic-"

"I've been paying attention to the terrors," she quickly said, sitting up straighter, "and I noticed that for the first few days we tie them up, they all try to fly in the same direction with their chains yanked as far as they can go. I don't have any doubt that the direction they're flying in is towards the nest."

Sitting straighter himself, Stoick felt a streak of cold excitement snake down his back. All of Berk knew that Stoick was one of their best chiefs not only for his physical prowess, but also because of his keen mind. After all, even though Val had been no slouch, Hiccup had had more than enough wits to inherit from his father. The possibilities of what she was hinting at where …

"I mean to say, what if instead of a post on the cliffs, they were tied to a ship mast?"

He swallowed. "They would lead us straight to the nest," he whispered. His fist came down on the table, making it wobble and making Astrid jump. "Why have I never thought of it! Ha!"

He rose quickly, reaching for his helmet, and was almost outside when he heard Astrid clear her throat. Stoick blinked, looking out the door he'd already flung open to be greeted by a hail storm that was ravaging the night. All of Berk was indoors, of course, and Stoick quickly closed the door as he was assaulted by large balls of ice. At the back of his mind, he registered that they'd covered the Autumn harvest just in time.

He sheepishly turned back to his near daughter-in-law, who was standing with her arms folded and an amused expression on her face.

"I think it can wait till morning, don't you?" she said with an entertained lilt in her voice and a raised brow. He smiled back, even though for only a moment, he saw another figure – shorter, skinnier, brown fur vest almost swallowing him as his overgrown hair got into his eyes.

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Astrid. But, of course. I won't be able to get anyone in the hall anyway at this hour."

She just smiled at him knowingly, and a larger part of him was almost ashamed of substituting her with a green-eyed, red-headed boy giving him the same expression of exasperated fondness; which he used to, in what felt like a lifetime ago. Before Stoick's patience for his son had somehow fallen short, and he had begun to lose sight of how much he actually loved him.

=0=

He dragged the heavy barrel across the dust floor, leaving a sizable groove. Righting it with a huff and a dull thump, he puffed a sigh and started putting the metal inside onto the hot ambers while operating the bellows with his left arm. Soon, it began to shine red and smoke, the corners becoming soft and rounded, and that was when he transferred it to the anvil with his thongs, taking a hammer to it with enthusiasm.

"How's it coming?"

Hiccup would have jumped if he hadn't noticed Toothless' head rise a few moments earlier. As it was, he smirked up at his visitor, who was evidently disappointed he hadn't cost the blacksmith at least a yelp.

"As far along as it can since you asked me a little while ago," Hiccup answered, still wearing his smirk. The older man huffed.

"Don't blame a guy for being impatient. I'm a Viking," he stated, as thought that was the justification for everything. "And it's not every day a man gets an axe made by you," he went on with a smirk, causing Hiccup to laugh quietly. He couldn't help a small feeling of pride; his work had become prized across places he'd visited, and had won him respect and a selection of places to return to. The respect had also won him the right to ask for the favour of anonymity with the few who had realised who he was, which had been respected to date.

"It's only my second axe, actually, so I'm not experienced at this as the sword making. Which I told you before I started, and which you ignored," Hiccup pointed out. Thuggory nodded gamely and hopped into the shop to sit on a bench. Toothless opened an eye to look at him, and then dismissed him.

"Because having the second axe is almost as good as having the first! It's all about supremacy and coming in first – or almost first." Hiccup mumbled a backhand compliment about Thuggory's improved vocabulary, which earned Hiccup a chucked oil rag and a huff from Toothless. "Don't get fresh with me, willow tree! Who is it who got the first axe, anyway! It must have been some damn lucky bastard, to have your very first!"

"You have the gender all wrong," Hiccup replied, before biting his lip and turning towards his anvil again.

"Oooh, a lady friend!" Thuggory said with a wide leer. "This I have to hear! I've never seen you even look at the girls who come to bother you for trinkets and knives to sharpen, much less make an axe for one. That's practically a bride price!"

Hiccup's pounding got louder, and Toothless opened an eye to look at his friend. "I worked at the forge," he muttered testily.

"And was it a commission?" Thuggery teased. Hiccup's silence made him burst out laughing. "Ha, I knew you had it in you!"

"I was twelve!"

"At that age already, too!"

"You're impossible," Hiccup grumbled with a huff, turning his back to the older man stiffly.

"Ah, you still think of her, don't you? I'll bet she-"

"She's back on Berk, probably married." Thuggory's mouth clamped shut quickly. Both of Toothless' eyes were open now, trained on his boy, and Hiccup's strikes were so powerful that the noise of metal on metal was echoing incessantly through the room. "Now, are you done distracting me, Mr Heir of the Meathead Tribe? I thought you wanted the axes done by your wedding."

"I do, and you'd better have them done, seeing as they're your wedding gift!" Thuggory chuckled in relief. Hiccup's mood always soured when Berk was mentioned. "I don't exchange a sissy sword on my wedding day – it's axes or nothing! And with the lightweight material you use … when will you share the secret?" He looked at the taller man hopefully.

"And lose my trade?" Hiccup answered. "I think not! A man's got to eat."

"Like a bird," Thuggory huffed. "I'd swear you lived off berries, air and water if anyone asked."

Hiccup simply smirked and turned back to his work, folding the metal again and looking over towards his dragon.

"Give it a one, bud?" Obediently, Hiccup's dragon raised his head and gave a short burst of flame, aimed hard and fast towards the metal. When the light cleared, the metal glowed just the right amount, and Hiccup looked at it in satisfaction. When he'd left Berk, before he'd decided to venture south, then returned to find that he could ply his considerable talent as a smith on the neighbouring islands, he'd settled for the first winter in the deserted isle he'd initially landed on. He'd learned to hunt in the hard way – where the only other option was starvation – and had quickly set up a small forge, with the dragon substituting the coal, to keep the saddle and the fin properly outfitted. Through trial and error, he and Toothless had established the perfect smelting points of most metals they had come across – including the special one from his gronkle girl which was his own trade secret, and which had guaranteed him work – and thus food and privacy – in most of the clans.

"I'll never get how you do this," Thuggory said with a whistful sigh. "Seriously, I haven't been the cool one on the island since you started coming here on and off. No more 'Thuggory, pride of Freezing to Death'. All the kids want to be like 'Cattongue' now, never mind their future chief."

Hiccup snorted. "No they don't. I know for a fact that Kestrel was up on the hillock last week, yelling to all those who heard that he was Thuggory, King of the Wilderwest and the best dragon rider of them all."

"Yeah," Thuggory said sarcastically, "until all the other kids started throwing dragon dung at him for saying that."

"That," said Hiccup, turning just enough to give Thuggory a pointed smirk, "was for the dragon riding part. Everyone knows I'm the best in that."

"Oh look," Thuggory replied, "I think your head is swelling. Hit it against the ceiling, willow tree?"

Snorting, Hiccup turned back to his anvil, pounding at the metal, and letting Thuggory preen at getting the last word. The truth was, Hiccup wasn't used to being picked on because he was tall. Hiding a smile, he gave a few more measured clangs, before his smile turning into something different entirely, satisfaction flushing up his spine as he plunged the thin metal rod into the bucket, quickly followed by the flat metal rings.

"What's those?" Thuggory asked curiously. "Making a gift for Heather too?"

"Those are the reason you asked me to make your axe, and not the old smith's apprentice. And I'm making Heather's axe too, or have you forgotten? They come in pairs," Hiccup jeered. "In fact, from now on, you will come in pairs." Hiccup mimicked a whipping motion, then ducked as Thuggory shot a bucket at him. Toothless blew it out of the smithy's open window with a single short blast, and then looked at Thuggory as if he were a child, causing Hiccup to laugh uproariously.

"Fine, fine, I get when I'm not wanted!" the clan heir said in mock offense. Toothless roared after him, clearly calling his bluff, and Hiccup only laughed more as he took the next part of the axe, already measured and ready to be smelted and cut. The axe head in its mould would be the last thing before assemblage and decoration, and Hiccup had already finished carving out the shape. He was reaching for the thongs when Thuggory showed up again, much to Toothless' frustration.

"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you either miss me, or really like it when Toothless chases you up and down the island."

"It's good exercise!" Toothless got to his feet, which caused Thuggory to chuckle uncomfortably, raising his arms in surrender, "buuut not right now. Look, I came to ask if you're going to be there. You know, when I get…" Thuggory repeated the whipping motion. Hiccup smirked.

"So you admit it!"

"Don't change the subject," Thuggory said astutely, and Hiccup frowned, having thought he'd get away with it.

"You know I can't, Thug," he groused, more bothered by the fact that he had to admit it. Hiccup had grown used to his tiny island, and even though he had gathered a fair amount of friendships during his travels, and visited many places and many of the islands in the archipelago, it was always a relief to return to the peace there compared with the hustle and bustle of the busy villages. Of course, that was in the summer; the first winter had nearly done him in and he had learned the lesson well, carefully choosing one village or another in the archipelago to spend the harsher months working his stay. That way, he made sure he never overstepped his host's hospitality, and managed to earn enough of a reputation as an independent soldier and smith to garner respect – which was often translated into a meal ticket. And on a few occasions, rekindled and strengthened old friendships.

"Oh come on, my brother!" Thuggory moaned. "What am I going to do when the cold sweat breaks, the legs start heading for the port and my father's already too drunk to stop me if I don't have my first man there to drag me back by the hair!" Hiccup laughed, puffing at the bellows and then lowering the metal into the coals. "You can't still be thinking 'bout all that. The past's the past. Hel's teeth, we even asked you to become a Meathead and you wouldn't!"

The smile Hiccup gave him made Thuggory huff in frustrated resignation. They'd had this discussion an uncountable number of times. Folding his arms and resting against the door jamb, Thuggory went on a lot more quietly. "You're not Hiccup the Unwanted anymore, you know."

Doing his best not to stiffen up, the smith took the metal out of the heat as it glowed orange-red, and carried it to the anvil. "Thug, I just can't risk it." CLANG. "Someone may recognise me, and I don't know what they'd do." CLANG CLANK. "See, they may have declared me outlaw, or outcast even, and I'd … I'd much rather not find that out." CLANG CLANK CLANG CLANK. TINK. "Can you imagine the sort of drama that would create, for your wedding? Do you want that for Heather?"

The Meathead clan heir's face soured. "I still don't think it's fair."

"Life never is," Hiccup replied wistfully, dunking the metal into the bucket, where it hissed and bubbled merrily.

"You'll come after. You promised." At this point Hiccup laughed openly, resting on the anvil and making Toothless look at him askance.

"Thug, it'll be your honeymonth -"

"And then who will I brag to if you're not here? I DID get the prettiest girl in the archipelago!" The sleazy grin Thuggory gave him only made Hiccup laugh harder.

"Try Dogsbreath. And don't let the Bogs hear you say THEY'RE not the prettiest as well as the fiercest – you'll start a war."

"Fine! But you will come! You swore you'd come two weeks after the wedding!" Another grin. "That's enough time to leave my new missus reeling, I'd say?"

"Or her to tie you up to the bed."

"If I'm lucky!"

The laughter followed Thuggory out of the smithy. Hiccup kept his smile long enough for his friend to be out of sight (and to make sure he wasn't coming back to make a third pass at it, which wasn't beyond him), before he sighed and let himself slump.

In less than a moon, the Meathead territory would be full to the brim with the dignitaries of the whole archipelago, some he knew, some he did not. Some he knew well, like Cami and her mother, chief Bertha from Bog. And his own father, of course.

Of all the places he visited, only Thuggory and Cami had found out who he'd been before leaving Berk, all those years ago – and that was because they'd recognised the scrawny fellow they'd sometimes played with as children at The Thing. Hiccup suspected that Bertha had her own mind, but had kept it to herself, while he was sure the Meathead chief had no idea who was currently smithing his horse shoes. Looking down at the rings he was making to fit around the handle of the ceremonial axes, he scoffed and got back to work. Thinking of what ifs and missing people who had probably rejoiced at his departure was a useless duty, like drawing in beach sand as the tide rises, he knew. Smithing, however, especially in a proper, old fashioned stall, made him acutely aware of how much he did miss them, how he wished that things could have been different, that HE could have been different, and that he could have grown into a man his father – and, maybe she – could have loved.

"Wonder if Gobber misses me, at least," he murmured out loud, to be answered by Toothless' soothing croon. He gave his scaly friend a sardonic smirk in reply. "Yeah, he's probably croaked by now, with no one to hand him the different arms. Having to reach for your own hands takes a toll on a man, I suppose." He smiled at his own joke, imagining the irate smith-master, his vocal protests and the glare he would have received if Gobber had been in listening distance of that jibe.

The place in his heart where he'd never stopped hurting, and never stopped missing home, gave a twinge. He acknowledged it, and hammered on.

=0=

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter.

A look, five years down the line, at all three main characters. Events will begin to pick up momentum almost immediately next chapter, and narratorial voices will become much more varied.

A few cultural notes:

1- Hacknee, Astrid's father, had every right to demand a portion, if not all, of what Astrid gained at the docks. That he let her keep all of it is actually a clear sign that not only are her parents kind and generous, but that she's slightly indulged, probably as the only girl child and baby of the family. Hacknee would have passed it to his wife, who would then redistribute it with the household's supplies. As Astrid, at the moment, is a member of his household, everything she earns has to pass through his hands at least in part, as he technically owns her. The same was also true, although to a lesser the degree, of all of Astrid's brothers.

2- When women married in Viking culture – or at least, Icelandic Vikings – they joined their husband's household, often living with up to seven other nuclear families in one hall as a single unit. This allowed the head of household to control the finances, have more manpower when it was needed (like during harvest time, or to man the boats), and literally have all the women together in one safe place. Women had more rights than other cultures; while women in Icelandic law weren't allowed to touch weapons, this obviously doesn't apply to Berk. However, women were allowed to own property, sign contracts, even have businesses and divorce their husbands. They kept their birth name – so Astrid would remain a Hofferson – but would still effectively become part of their husband's clan unless they divorced him. If she did leave him, she could take what was left of her dowry and the children with her. The couple during the wedding also traditionally exchanged rings (thought to be the birth of our tradition today after the Scandinavian countries absorbed Christianity, and got the daughter of a Viking king to marry the holy Emperor) and swords. Thuggory decided that swords were for ninnies. For more information on weddings, google Viking Answer Lady. And Horrible Histories. The last, if not terribly serious, is more or less accurate and viciously amusing.

3- I'm going to be a lot less nice to the dragons here than the PG-rated movie was allowed to be. There will be nothing graphic, but already you can see why the rating is so high (the highest it can go before people started asking me whether the story was going to take a dive into racier waters, in fact, and caused me to tone it down slightly). These are Vikings; they will not molly-coddle their enemies. I hated doing something so terrible to those poor terrors, but the story required it. I'm afraid we will not be seeing the little red terror with the pretty green eyes again, either. Readers can imagine what they will as regards to his fate.

4- Some of my crack pairings have started popping up. Heather/Thuggory is one of them. Thuggory here is not exactly his equivalent in the books – there is very little to go on there for the boy, other than that he's a decent chap. So here he's the heir of the Meatheads, a bit loud, a bit flamboyant, loves him some drama, has a good heart, and about to marry his manipulative, deviant sweetheart. Heather is the girl from the TV show, because I adored how wily and smart she is, and I couldn't help pairing someone who's down-to-earth and quick-thinking to a loud, fun, drama-queen lad. They are utterly bananas to write. There is one other crack-pairing. It will happen … slightly later.

I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter. The next will be out on Friday 7th February `14.